Taliban fighters overran a remote outpost in the Waygal District of Nuristan Province which gave them control of the small village there. They control many areas in Afghanistan and much of the time the situation is give and take.
The thing to watch for is the frequency of these types of attack by the Taliban. The reason that I say this is because they typically rev up the action when the weather warms up. An increased number of small actions may indicate that they are probing the territory to look for weak spots in the defense forces assigned to the area. They may be attempting to gather intelligence so that they will know which areas that they have a chance of taking over with an offensive operation.
I am keeping an eye on developments in the area and this is about the third such incident that I have read about in the last two days. There had been a long period of time where nothing seemed to be going on so I know that they are preparing for some sort of action. If you keep track of the action you can pretty much figure out what they are trying to do. For example where do they fight? Do they fight and run which indicates gathering intelligence, or do they fight to hold a position which indicates that they are intending to use that particular area as a staging area or an area of operation to support another attack.
The thing which disturbs me is that the Afghan security forces assigned to protect the area turned tail and ran. They surrefed no casualties because they didn’t hang around long enough to get hurt. I certainly hope that this one incident isn’t an indictment of their resolve because if it is we are in deep trouble. Our custom military ring customers have shown more resolve and this isn’t even their country. I certainly hope that the Afghan security forces make a better statement of their resolve in the future.
